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Music and festivities at the court of Leo X: a Venetian view*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Bonnie J. Blackburn
Bonnie J. Blackburn
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

‘On 1 October 1518, Cardinal Cornaro and Cardinal Pisani left Venice for Rome; they went by water to Chioggia, then set out on horseback.’ Thus begins the diary entry of a young Venetian patrician, Marcantonio Michiel, who was himself a member of the travelling party. Twenty-five days later they arrived in Rome, where Michiel was to stay for two years. During this period he noted in his diary both political events in Rome and news from Venice, but – unlike many diarists – he was keenly interested in art and music, and he also recorded detailed descriptions of Roman festivities. Having been brought up in Venice, with its magnificent state pageantry, he was prepared to appreciate Roman ceremonial, both civic and religious, and, with his entrée to the papal court, he was privileged to be present at private entertainments. For some of these occasions we have eye-witness accounts by other observers, but for several Michiel seems to be the only source known so far. He enlarges our picture of the music-loving pope and highlights the activities of Leo's private musicians. His reports of musical performances add new information to our meagre knowledge of early sixteenth-century instrumentation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 11 , October 1992 , pp. 1 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 ‘Adi primo ottobre 1518 si partirono di Venetia il Cardinal Cornaro et il Cardinal Pisano per Roma, et andorono per acqua a Chioza, et indi se messero à cavallo.’ Venice, Biblioteca Correr, Cod. Cicogna 2848, fol. 287v. Francesco Pisani, elected on 1 July 1517, was making his first trip to Rome.

2 On Michiel's life and writings, see Cicogna, E. A., ‘Intorno la vita e le opere di Marcantonio Michiel’, Memorie dell'Istituto Veneto, 9 (Venice, 1860), pp. 359–425 (also published separately, Venice, 1861)Google Scholar; Nicolini, F., L'arte napoletana del Rinascimento e la lettera di Pietro Summonte a Marcantonio Michiel (Naples, 1925)Google Scholar; and now (with new documents) Fletcher, J., ‘Marcantonio Michiel: His Friends and Collection’, The Burlington Magazine, 123 (1981), pp. 453–67Google Scholar, and ‘Marcantonio Michiel, “che ha veduto assai”’, ibid., pp. 602–8. For his collection, see Fletcher, , ‘Marcantonio Michiel's Collection’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 36 (1973), pp. 382–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Sanuto, M., I diarii, ed. Fulin, R. et al. , 58 vols. (Venice, 1879–1903), xxviii, cols. 299–301 (on Carnival) and 424–6 (on Raphael)Google Scholar.

4 See Fletcher, ‘Marcantonio Michiel: His Friends and Collection’, p. 453, n. 9.

5 ‘tecum de litteris, de musica, de philosophia, ut solebamus, suavissime colloqui opto’; see Nicolini, , L'arte napoletana, p. 138Google Scholar. Nicolini reprints the letter of Pietro Summonte of 20 March 1524, written in answer to Michiel's request for information about Neapolitan painting, sculpture and architecture. In it Summonte praises the architect Giovanni Mormando, remarking that ‘questo da prima fo maestro d'organi, poi s’è convertito all'architettura e alla totale imitazione di cose antique’ (pp. 172–3).

6 ‘Il carnoval in Roma fu molto fes toso, et lieto per caccie, et comedie, et altre feste, che si fecero; all'incontro in Napoli malinconico per li respetti di presoni, et gelosia de Hispani.’ Cod. Cicogna 2848, fol. 297r.

7 Ibid., fols. 306r-307r

8 See his letter of 23 February 1520 to Nicolò Dolfin, printed in Sanuto, , I diarii, xxiii, cols. 299–301Google Scholar. The diary entry is very similar, but does not include this last remark.

9 The literature on Roman carnivals is extensive. For a brief account, with references, see Stinger, C. L., The Renaissance in Rome (Bloomington, IN, 1985), pp. 57–9Google Scholar.

10 A number of excerpts from contemporary accounts are reprinted in Cruciani, F., Teatro nel Rinascimento: Roma 1450–1550 (Rome, 1983)Google Scholar. See also Fiorani, L. et al. , Riti, ceremonie, feste e vita di popolo nella Roma dei Papi (Bologna, 1970)Google Scholar.

11 The most extensive account is found in Frey's, H.-W. article, ‘Regesten zur päpstlichen Kapelle unter Leo X. und zu seiner Privatkapelle’, published in instalments in Die Musikforschung, 8 (1955) and 9 (1956). For the private chapel, see 8, pp. 412–37, and 9, pp. 46–57, 139–56 and 411–19Google Scholar.

12 Petrus Pirrinus, aged fourteen in 1520; see Frey, ‘Regesten’ (1956), p. 50. The three ‘cantores parvi’ sent by Louis XII to Leo X on his election, including Hilaire Penet and Johannes Consilium, were now grown, but might have been replaced, as was their companion, Pierre de Monchiaron, in 1514; see Pirro, A., ‘Leo X and Music’, The Musical Quarterly, 21 (1935), pp. 1–16, on p. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Indeed, in 1518 Leo charged his legate in France, Cardinal Bibbiena, with procuring ‘tre putti cantori’, even specifying what voices and ages were wanted; see the exchange of letters between Cardinal Giulio de' Medici and Bibbiena discussed by Cummings, A. M. in ‘Giulio de’ Medici's Music Books’, Early Music History, 10 (1991), pp. 65–122, on p. 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. No boys are listed among the salaried singers. However, special payments were made to Gasparrino, the chapel-singer Antonio Bidon's son, and to a ‘Philippo cantarino’ (24 December 1520), who lived with Bidon (3 March 1519, 25 June 1521); Frey, pp. 54–5. Boys might have been borrowed from the entourages of cardinals: on 29 september 1518 Leo gave 2 gold ducats ‘a uno pucto cantore di mons. R.mo de Aragona’ (ibid., p. 143). On boy singers in Rome, see Reynolds, C.J., ‘Rome: A City of Rich Contrast’, The Renaissance: From the 1470s to the End of the 16th Century, ed. Fenlon, I. (London, 1989), pp. 63–101, on pp. 77–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Andreas de Silva, Antonius Bruhier, Firminus le Clerc, Franciscus Vanelst, Jacotinus Level, Jo. Jacobus de Tarvisio, Laurentius de Bergomotiis, Simon Malle, Valentinus de la Rue and Gaspar van Weerbeke; see Frey, ‘Regesten’ (1955), pp. 412–14, 416–17, 422–3, 425–7, 432–7, (1956), pp. 51–2 and 55–6 (the payment to van Weerbeke may have been only a pension; he was then about seventy-five years old). Bruhier, Laurentius de Bergomotiis and Jo. Jacobus de Tarvisio had been cantores secreti since 1513 (ibid. (1955), p. 412); Andreas de Silva joined them in January 1519 (ibid., p. 413), Firminus le Clerc, Franciscus Vanelst and Jacobinus Level in February of that year (ibid., p. 416), Valentinus de la Rue in September 1519 (Ibid. (1956), p. 51) and Simon Malle in June 1520 (ibid).

14 The first five appear on a list of August 1520 (Frey (1956), p. 140, n. 94). ‘Gian Jacomo piffero', also from Cesena, had formerly been a member of the Florentine Signoria's wind-band during the time when Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, was governor of Florence. See Sherr, R., ‘Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, as a Patron of Music’, Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, 2 vols. (Florence, 1985), i, pp. 627–38, on p. 628Google Scholar. The two Bartolos had originally served Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona; on his death attempts were made to engage them as well, but it was too late: the pope had already hired all five of the cardinal&s wind players (and at a higher salary than Lorenzo's ambassador thought them worth); ibid., p. 629. Leo had given them a gift of 150 ducats in May 1518, while they were still in the cardinal's service (Frey (1956), pp. 142–3). In Leo's service the five were paid 177 ducats every three months, plus rent on their houses (Frey (1956), p. 57). Melchiore was hired in April 1520 (ibid., p. 141).

15 Michele da Verona joined in February 1520 (Frey (1956), p. 140, n. 94). Knud Jeppesen suggested that he is the same as Michele Pesenti da Verona, lutenist and composer; see La frottola, 3 vols. (Århus and Copenhagen, 1968–1970), i, p. 159Google Scholar. Since then further information has come to light that strengthens this hypothesis. Michele was in the service of Ippolito I d'Este from 1506 to 1514, as lutenist, singer, purchaser of music and instruments and copyist; see Lockwood, L., ‘Adrian Willaert and Cardinal Ippolito d'Este: New Light on Willaert's Early Career in Italy, 1515–21’, Early Music History, 5 (1985), pp. 85–112, on pp. 99 and 112CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He had a son Alberto, traceable in Ippolito's accounts in 1510–11 and 1517–20 (ibid., p. 110). Another musician, ‘Alexandro de pre Michele’ appears in 1516–17 and 1520 (ibid.), and ‘Janes de pre Michele (sonator de fagotto)’ in 1508–10, 1512–14, 1517 (p. 111). Jeppesen suggested that he is the ‘Michael presbyter et cantor’ who wrote to Ippolito d&Este in 1504 and 1505 (La frottola, i, pp. 158–9Google Scholar). That the Michele da Verona in Leo&s accounts is a ‘piffero’ might to seem to speak against the identification. However, he is qualified as ‘messer’ and is paid the very high salary of 15 gold ducats a month; he also had additional duties, for which he was paid extra: ‘due. cinque per certe spese fe, quando ando la musica a la Manliana’ in August 1520 (Frey (1956) p. 140, n. 94), and ‘per alcune spese facte per N. S. per nolo de habiti nel carnevale et per far fare libri di musica per andar fora il Maggio a la Magliana et per far conciare le storte due. octo iul. dui’ in June 1521 (ibid., p. 142, n. 97). He was obviously a versatile musician.

16 Frey (1955), pp. 424–5, 427–31, (1956), pp. 56, 140. On Jo. Maria, variously called ‘Dominici’, ‘Alemanus’, ‘Hebreo’, ‘de Medici’ and ‘Conte de Verrucchio’, see Slim, H.C., ‘Gian and Gian Maria, Some Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Namesakes’, The Musical Quarterly, 57 (1971), pp. 562–74, on pp. 563–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Cummings, A.M., ‘Gian Maria Giudeo, Sonatore del Liuto, and the Medici’, Fontes Artis Musicae, 38 (1991)Google Scholar. Another four-lute ensemble, including Jo. Maria Alemanus (de' Medici), played at a banquet in Rome on 20 May 1523; see Pirrotta, N., ‘Music and Cultural Tendencies in 15th-Century Italy’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 19 (1966), pp. 127–61, on p. 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar (citing Sanuto, , I diarii, xxxivGoogle Scholar, col. 216).

17 Frey (1956), pp. 139–40. In February 1520 Sanuto notes that ‘Zuan Maria dal Clavicimbano, marito di Hieronima che canta, per il suo ben sonar a Roma, il Papa li ha dato provisione e lo tien de lì’ (I diarii, xxviii, col. 302). Frey lists no keyboard player of this name. It is my suspicion that Sanuto gave an incorrect name for Marc'Antonio Cavazzoni, perhaps confusing him with the other Venetian musician at Leo's court, Jo. Maria dal Corneto. Cavazzoni entered the pope's service in that same month (Frey (1956), p. 140). We know nothing of his wife, but he did have a son, Girolamo, who followed in his father's footsteps. For the most up-to-date information on the two musicians, see Oscar Mischiati's articles in the Dizionario biografico degli italiani.

18 See Frey (1956), pp. 140–1. Zacharia was well enough known to have been included in Philippo Oriolo's poem ‘Monte Parnaso’; see Slim, H.C., ‘Musicians on Parnassus’, Studies in the Renaissance, 12 (1965), pp. 134–63, on p. 144CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 See Frey (1955), pp. 413, 415–19, 424, (1956), pp. 47–8, 56–7. Galeazzo Baldi, a Bolognesc, was possibly the singer Galeazzo listed in the accounts of the Cappella Giulia for October–November 1513; see Ducrot, A., ‘Histoire de la Cappella Giulia au XVIe siècle depuis sa fondation par Jules II (1513) jusqu'à sa restauration par Grégoire XIII (1578)’, Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'École Française de Rome, 75 (1963), pp. 179–240, 467–559, on p. 187CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He had been in Leo's service before he became pope (Frey (1955), p. 412). A ‘Galeazzo sonatore di liutto’ served Clement VII in 1524; ibid. (1956), p. 144.

20 ‘[Marco Minio] scrive, havendo disnato col Papa a la Magnana, nel partir il cardinal Corner li disse, da parte dil Papa, instasse esso Orator con la Signoria nostra fosse dato licentia a uno Zuan Maria pifaro dil Doxe aziò vengi de lì per compir certa musicha; la qual cossa facendo sarà molto grata al Papa’; I diarii, xxviii, col. 488. He is probably the ‘Ser Zuan Maria pifaro dal corneto’ who entered the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista in 1527; see Glixon, J.E., ‘Music at the Venetian “Scuole Grandi”, 1440–1540’, 2 vols. (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1979), i, p. 78Google Scholar.

21 ‘Per la Signoria fo dà licentia, a complacentia dil Papa, che Zuan Maria pifaro dil Doxe possi andar per uno anno a servir el Papa, lasando suo fradelo in loco suo con il suo salario’; 15 June 1520 (Sanuto, , I diarii, xxviiiGoogle Scholar, col. 618). In Rome he was paid at the high rate of 15 ducats a month from May 1520 to April 1521; Frey (1956), pp. 140–1. For other references to Jo. Maria and his playing, see Pirro, ‘Leo X and Music’, pp. 14–15, and Slim, ‘Gian and Gian Maria’, p. 570.

22 Frey (1955), p. 199.

23 A setting by F. P. (Francesco Patavino=Santa Croce) is in Canzoni, frottole e capitoli, libro secondo de la croce (1531), fols. 29v-31, and an anonymous one in the Libra primo de la fortuna, fol. 13. Other candidates are Paulo Scotto's Turluru la capra e moza (Petrucci, Frottole bk vii) and Rossino da Mantova's Lirum bililirum (Frottole bk ii). Pirrotta suggests that the latter and his Perche fai, donna, el gaton may have been used in theatrical performances; see Music and Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi, trans. Eales, K. (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 67–9Google Scholar. The former is headed ‘Un sonar de piva in fachinesco’, imitating the sound of bagpipes and in Bergamasque dialect. On these and other pieces with a Bergamasque connection, with translations, see Prizer, W. F., ‘Games of Venus: Secular Vocal Music in the Late Quattrocento and Early Cinquecento’, Journal of Musicology, 9 (1991), 3–56, on pp. 47–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Brown, H. M., Sixteenth-Century Instrumentation: The Music for the Florentine Intermedii, Musicological Studies and Documents 30 (n.p., 1973), p. 78Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., p. 25.

26 Brown, H. M., ‘A Cook's Tour of Ferrara in 1529’, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, 10 (1975), pp. 216–41Google Scholar.

27 ‘et per ogni acto, se li intermediò una musica de pifari, de cornamusi, de dui corneti, de viole, et leuti, de l'organeto che è tanto variato de voce, che donò al Papa monsignor illustrissimo de bona memoria [Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona], et insieme vi era un flauto, et una voce che molto bene si commendò; li fu ancho un concerto de voce in musica’; from a letter of Alfonso Paolucci of 8 March 1519 to Alfonso I d'Este, reprinted in Cruciani, Teatro nel Rinascimento, pp. 455–7. It is not clear whether the intermedio consisted solely of music or also acting; the last intermedio was a moresca on ‘la fabula de Gorgon’. While Leo's instrumental forces were sufficient for the 1520 performances, he did not have enough for the Ariosto intermedio and Cardinal Cibo wanted to borrow some from the Florentine Signoria; see the urgent requests in, ‘Lorenzo de' Medici’, p. 629. However, the Duke proved stubborn – until informed that ‘N. S. li disidera’, whereupon they were dispatched the following day. Three new cantores secreti had been hired in February, probably with the Carnival festivities in mind (see above, n. 13).

28 But Atalante Migliorotti had conceived the instrument as early as 1505; in a letter written to Francesco Gonzaga he called it ‘a new and unusual form of lyre’: ‘col mio debile ingegno, introduco nuovo, inaudito et inusitato modo di sonare, con nuova et inusitata forma di lyra, con ciò sia cosa io adgiunga corde al compimento al numero di XII, parte nel suo tempo oportuno dal piede, et parte dalla mano tastabili in perfecta et consummata consonantia’; see Prizer, W. F., ‘Isabella d'Este and Lorenzo da Pavia, “Master Instrument-Maker”’, Early Music History, 2(1982), pp. 87–127, on p. 108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Brown, , Sixteenth-Century Instrumentation, p. 47Google Scholar.

30 Woodfield, I., The Early History of the Viol (Cambridge, 1984), p. 7Google Scholar.

31 The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, ed. Sadie, S., 3 vols. (London, 1984), ii, p. 529Google Scholar.

32 Glixon, ‘Music at the Venetian “Scuole Grandi”’, ii, pp. 87–8.

33 Ibid., p. 89.

34 Ibid., p. 70. Other early references to the lirone are found in Giovan Francesco Straparola's Le piacevoli notti, published in 1550–1553 but set in Venice about 1536, and Teofilo Folengo's Caos del triperuno of 1526; seeElias, C. A., ‘Musical Performance in 16th century Italian Literature: Straparola's Le piacevoli notti’, Early Music, 17 (1989), pp. 161–73, on pp. 164–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Woodfield, , Early History, also believes that early mentions of the lirone are ‘almost certainly references to the viol’ (p. 181)Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., p. 81.

37 Keith Polk has recently argued that there is not much evidence that the Spanish viol tradition was very influential in the northern Italian courts, and that the German and native Italian viol traditions need to be taken into account. See ‘Vedel and Geige – Fiddle and Viol: German String Traditions in the Fifteenth Century’, Journal of the American Muskological Society, 42 (1989), pp. 504–46, esp. 531–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 See Prizer, W. F., ‘Bernardino Piffaro e i pifferi e tromboni di Mantova: strumenti a fiato in una corte italiana’, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, 16 (1981), pp. 151–84, esp. 160–3Google Scholar.

39 Prologue to Proportionate musices; see Strunk, O., Source Readings in Music History (New York, 1950), p. 195Google Scholar.

40 See Ducrot, ‘Histoire de la Cappella Giulia’, p. 192. He must have entered the Chapel some time after 1514; all records are lost between 1514 and 1526. The Cappella Giulia regularly employed boys; a ‘Johannes’ was a boy singer in 1513–14 (pp. 187–8), but the name is so common that he cannot be identified securely with the adult singer Johannes of 1526.

41 The English cardinal, Thomas Wolsey, did not reside in Rome; business was conducted through the Bishop of Worcester, who, however, was an Italian, Silvestro Gigli, as was Henry VIII's ambassador to the Holy See, Gregorio Casali. Little is known about their households, but it seems unlikely that they included many Englishmen. Before 1514 the presence of English choristers would have been more likely. Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge, who did reside in Rome, had a number of Englishmen in his household, including Richard Pace, the humanist and friend of Erasmus, who was keenly interested in music. He left Rome on the cardinal's death in 1514.

42 There is little evidence, however, to support this notion. The English church and hospice in Rome, which flourished during the Middle Ages, serving as the centre for English pilgrims to Rome, were in a parlous state in these very years. Cardinal Bainbridge had been forced to retrench to pay the debts his predecessors had run up. Records of this period are fragmentary, but we do know that Bainbridge paid for many expenses from his own income. See Chambers, D. S., Cardinal Bainbridge in the Court of Rome 1509 to 1514 (London, 1965), esp. pp. 78, 80 and 118–19Google Scholar. In 1518 Gigli warned Wolsey that the hospice was in great distress and was hardly able to bear the cost of feeding pilgrims, to say nothing of the ‘evil disposed clerks, which came yearly from England to be made priests, and so by they made clandestine with false tittylls’ (letter of 9 January 1518; abstract in Letters and Papers … Henry VIII, ii, p. 1213Google Scholar). On the history of the English Hospice in Rome, see vol. xxi of The Venerabile (Exeter, 1962), esp., for this period, Brian Newns, ‘The Hospice of St Thomas and the English Crown 1474–1538’, pp. 145–92.

43 The word rarely occurs in Italian dictionaries, and always in a sense not applicable in the present case. Even dialect dictionaries of the Veneto have not been helpful. The word is clearly written, and it is hard to imagine that the copyist of Michiel's diary misread the word ‘canto’, which would be the most likely meaning. Anthony Newcomb made the interesting suggestion that it might be derived from the adjectival ending -tano, such as ‘(canzone) napolitano’.

44 Early Tudor Songs and Carols, ed. Stevens, J., Musica Britannica 36 (London, 1975), p. 19Google Scholar. There are few secular macaronic songs, but many carols mix English and Latin.

45 See Luisi, F., Apografo miscellaneo marciano: Frottole, canzoni e madrigali con alcuni alia pavana in villanesco (Venice, 1979), pp. 135–6Google Scholar. A chorus of bacchants appeared in Politian's Orfeo. Francesco Corteccia set to music a song that was sung and danced by four bacchants and four satyrs at the end of the comedy performed in July 1539 for the wedding of Cosimo de’ Medici with Eleanor of Toledo; see Pirrotta, , Music and Theatre, pp. 157–9Google Scholar. It too begins with the words ‘Bacco, Bacco’, continuing with the cry of the bacchants, ‘e u o e’.

46 Lucidario in musica (Venice, 1545)Google Scholar, bk iv, ch. 1: ‘per ritrovarsi come habbiamo detto varielingue, & populi, conseguentemente da quelli derivano, diverse musiche, & pronontie … sì come à Franciosi il cantare, alli Inglesi il giubilare, alli Hispagnuoli il piagnere, a Tedeschi l'urlare, Et all'Italiani il caprezzare, la qual cosa non mi si puo far a credere, che da altro proceda, che da invidia, & malignita.’ His source is probably Gaffurius's, FranchinusTheorica musicae (Milan, 1492)Google Scholar, fol. k5: ‘Anglici enim concinendo iubilant. Cantant Galici. Hyspani ploratus promunt. Germani ululatus. Italorum nonnullos ut genuenses et qui ad eorum littora resident caprizare ferunt.’

47 In defence of the Italians, I quote the report of the performance of Lamentations at the papal chapel during Holy Week 1518: ‘prima per hispanos lamentabiliter, secunda per gallicos docte, tertia per italos dulciter’; see Pirrotta, N., ‘Rom’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Blume, F., 14 vols. (Kassel and Basle, 1949–1968 and suppls.), xi, col. 703Google Scholar. The report comes from the diary of the master of ceremonies, Paride de' Grassi. In Alexander VI's time the Passion was sung exclusively by the Spaniards, who, in Grassi's words, ‘naturaliter cantando magis flere videntur quam vociferari’; see Sherr, R., ‘The Singers of the Papal Chapel and Liturgical Ceremonies in the Early Sixteenth Century: Some Documentary Evidence’, Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth, ed. Ramsey, P. A. (Binghamton, NY, 1982), pp. 249–64, on p. 263, n. 35Google Scholar.

48 See the prologue to Tinctoris's Proportionate musices: ‘Haec eis Anglici nunc, licet vulgariter iubilare, Gallici vero cantare dicantur.’

49 Ornithoparchus, Andreas: ‘Hinc Angli iubilant, galli cantant … Hispani ploratus promunt: Italorum pars, qui Januensium littora inhabitant caprisare dicuntur, ceteri latrant: Germani vero: quod pudet dicere: ut lupi ullulant’ (taken from Gaffurins, with acknowledgement); Musice active micrologus (Leipzig, 1517)Google Scholar, fol. M2. Finck, Hermann omits the English in his list: ‘Germani boant: Itali balant: Hispani eiulant: Galli cantant’; Practka musica (Wittenberg, 1556)Google Scholar, fol. Ssiv. Even the English themselves use the term. The fourteenth-century motet Sub Arturo plebs includes the words ‘musicorum vero chorus odas jubilat’; see Harrison, F. Ll., ed., Musicorum collegia: Fourteenth-Century Musicians' Motets (Monaco, 1986), p. 27Google Scholar; ‘odas jubilat’ descends through an octave (bars 32–4).

50 A fifteenth-century Spanish manuscript takes the saying back to antiquity: ‘Diversae nationes … diversimode sibi displicent in cantando. Graeci dicunt Latinos ut canes latrare et Latini dicunt quod Graeci gemunt sicut vulpes. Saraceni dicunt Christiani non cantare sed delirare fatentur. E converso referunt Christiani quod Saraceni voces transglutiunt et cantus in faucibus gargaricant. Asserunt Gallici quod Italici semper in crebra vocum fractione delirant. Unde illos dedignantur audire.’ Quoted by Bridgman, N., ‘On the Discography of Josquin and the Interpretation of his Music in Recordings’, Josquin des Prez: Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Conference, ed. Lowinsky, E. E. and Blackburn, B.J. (London, 1976), pp. 633–41, on p. 640Google Scholar, from Handschin, J., ‘Réflexions dangereuses sur le renouveau de la musique ancienne’, Atti del terzo congresso internazionale di musica (Florence, 1940), p. 53Google Scholar.

51 June 1515; quoted in Harrison, F. Ll., Music in Medieval Britain (4th edn, Buren, 1980), p. 171Google Scholar.

52 In Ps. 46, 7 (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 38, p. 533, II. 5–6). A similar explanation appears in In Ps. 65, 2 (ibid. 39, p. 833, 11. 15–18). For this and the following notes I am greatly indebted to Leofranc Holford-Strevens.

53 ‘et inter cantica quae verbis enuntiant, inserunt voces quasdam sine verbis in elatione exsultantis animi, et haec vocatur iubilatio’; ibid. 39, p. 1394, II. 12–19. (The modern reader will be reminded of yodelling.) Gregory the Great echoes Augustine in emphasising the mental exultation that cannot be expressed by words but only by sound: ‘iubilum vero dicimus cum tantam laetitiam corde concipimus, quantam sermonis efficacia non explemus; et tamen mentis exsultatio hoc quod sermone non explicat voce sonat’; Moralia in lob 8: 88 (ibid. 143, p. 451, II. 14–16). He makes a similar remark at 24: 10 (ibid. 143B, p. 1195, II. 9–11).

54 Schlager, K., ‘Jubilus’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, S., 20 vols. (London, 1980), ix, pp. 744–5Google Scholar.

55 ‘Hic iubilus li.i. argutus sonorus et letabundus cantus. Proprie quidem iubilus est vox confusa pre gaudio. Unde iubilo as cantare gaudere quadam voce confusa pre gaudio exultare et letari.’ Quoted from Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 626, fol. 91vb.

56 At my lectures I used the Sicut erat of Cornysh's Magnificat for five voices, sung by the Tallis Singers, as an illustration. It begins with a duo for the two lowest voices, which gradually rises by voice-pairs until the meane and treble sing the most dazzling melismatic lines, reaching to the top of the range, whereupon all five voices unite in the Amen. The effect was all the more striking since the Tallis Singers had transposed the work up by a minor third, making the top note bb″″.

57 In the edition by Harrison, F. LI., The Eton Choirbook, Musica Britannica 10–12 (London,1956–1961), nos. 2, 3 and 14Google Scholar.

58 Ibid., nos. 10, 12, 27, 43 and 52.

59 Ibid., nos. 20, 24 and 45.

60 Wulstan, D., ‘The Problems of Pitch in Sixteenth-Century English Vocal Music’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 93 (1966–1967), pp. 97–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a list of various reactions to that article, and Wulstan's further publications, see Fallows, D., ‘The Performing Ensembles in Josquin's Sacred Music’, Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 35 (1985), pp. 32–64, on p. 62, n. 75Google Scholar. Fallows notes that the Italian ambassador was in fact remarking particularly on the bass singers (‘non cantavano ma jubilavano, et maxime de contrabassi, che non credo al mondo sieno li pari’; cited from Sanuto, , I diarii, xx, col. 266Google Scholar).

61 See the curious anonymous virelai Helas mon tetin in Escorial B, fol. 128v: the soprano ranges from c′ to c′′′. Modern edition in The Chansonnier El Escorial IV.a.24, ed. Hanen, M. K., 3 vols., Musicological Studies 36 (Henryville, PA, Ottawa and Binningen, 1983), in, pp. 446–9; commentary i, p. 65Google Scholar, and in Anonymous Pieces in the MS El Escorial IV.a.24, ed. Southern, E., Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 88 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 40–1Google Scholar.

62 For this aspect of Cornysh's career, see Anglo, S., ‘William Cornish in a Play, Pageants, Prison, and Polities’, Review of English Studies, new ser., 10 (1959), pp. 347–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and idem, ‘The Evolution of the Early Tudor Disguising, Pageant, and Mask’, Renaissance Drama, new ser., 1 (1968), pp. 3–44.

63 See Frey, ‘Regesten’ (1956), p. 197, n. 73. However, Grassi and many of the Singers had additional income from benefices, and extra payments to singers, detailed in the Sistine diaries, added considerably to their income.

64 Partner, P., Renaissance Rome 1500–1559: A Portrait of a Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976), p. 138Google Scholar.

65 Ibid.

66 Pastor, L., Storia dei Papi dalla fine del media evo, trans. Mercati, A., iv, pt 1 (repr. Rome, 1945), p. 336Google Scholar.

67 Brown found the same practice in the Florentine intermedi (Sixteenth-Century Instrumentation, p. 66).

68 See Appendix 2, excerpt l. Grassi rarely refers to singing in polyphony. As Richard Sherr has remarked, he mentions it ‘when something new, strange or incorrect has occurred’. For several such occasions, see Sherr, ‘Singers of the Papal Chapel’, pp. 255–8. Grassi evidently did not care for falsobordone. This is one of two occasions on which he criticised the singers for using it (see ibid., p. 256 and n. 33).

69 ‘Cantores cantarunt certo modo dulciore, quam soleant.’ Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 12275, fol. 136v.

70 ‘Missam cantavit episcopus Tudeanentis [recte Tudertinus] assistens novus, et satis laudabiliter cantavit. Sed cantores quasi aegre sibi respondebant, quia nihil eis donavit, tune Papa autem me suadente, nescio quid eis pro bibalius dedit.’ Ibid., fol. 380r.

71 See also Il diario di Leone X di Paride de Grassi, ed. Delicati, P. and Armellini, M. (Rome, 1884), p. 68Google Scholar, for the same entry, in slightly different wording, taken from another manuscript. The edition includes only excerpts; no complete edition has as yet been published.

72 ‘Missam in die idem Episcopus cantavit ceremonijs solitis et dixit Credo…’ Vat. lat. 12275, fol. 220r.

73 Grassi refers to his Ceremonial, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 5634bis, fol. 344r.

74 Not until 1573 was the solemn observation revoked, to the regret of the then master of ceremonies, Francesco Mucanzio: ‘Die Mercurij 24 Junij [1573] in die Sancti Joannis Baptistae non fuit celebrata missa solemnis in Capella prout tempore Pij Quinti et iampridem ex instituto seu decreto Concistoriali tempore Leonis X.mi fuerat ordinatum, Nam in congregatione reformationis cerimoniarum visum fuit presentibus eam omitti posse. Quod meo iudicio (cum reverentia tantorum patrum) non bene fuit resolutum, quia ut in Cerimoniali ordinario habetur, haec erat missa antiqua, et solemniter celebrari solita etiam multo ante Leonem X.m etiam cum Vesperis precedentibus, et bene. Quia inter natos mulierum non surrexit maior Jo. Baptista Quod et Paris animadvertit.’ I have used the copy in Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, MS Lat. IX.29 (=3440), fol. 7r.

75 ‘The Feast of Thomas Aquinas in Renaissance Rome: A Neglected Document and its Import’, Rivisla di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, 35 (1981), pp. 1–27, esp. 5–7Google Scholar.

76 Increasing attention has been given to this area in recent years. I cite in particular the work of Barbara Haggh; see ‘Music, Liturgy, and Ceremony in Brussels, 1350–1500’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1988)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 2, and ‘Itinerancy to Residency: Professional Careers and Performance Practices in 15th-Century Sacred Music’, Early Music, 17 (1989), pp. 359–66Google Scholar.

77 Trexler, R.C., Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980), p. 423Google Scholar.

78 Ibid., n. 16.

79 See Pastor, , Storia dei Papi, iv, pt 1, pp. 383–4Google Scholar.

80 On Leo's love of hunting, see Gnoli, D., La Roma di Leon X (Milan, 1938), p. 245Google Scholar. In 1516 Grassi notes: ‘Die Veneris xviij Septembris Papa solatij causa recessit ex urbe versus Viterbium cum aliquibus Cardinalibus venatoribus et aucupibus et similibus, et dixit mihi in recessu quod mitterem Cantores ad ipsum pro missa Sanctorum Cosmae et Damiani in Viterbium celebranda’ (Vat. lat. 12275, fol. 177r).

81 This festivity was the occasion of the coronation of another ‘archpoet’, Camillo Querno, renowned more for his great appetite and capacity to hold liquor than for his verses. At the banquet, dressed up as Venus, he sang improvised verses, to which Leo X is supposed to have responded in kind. See Pastor, , Storia dei Papi, iv, pt 1, p. 383Google Scholar.

82 Frey, ‘Regesten’ (1956), p. 142.

83 Ibid.

84 Ibid., p. 141.

85 As reported by Marino Giorgi to the Venetian Senate, 17 March 1517 (Sanuto, , I diarii, xxiv, col. 93Google Scholar).

86 , ‘Regesten’ (1956), pp. 142–3.

87 Castiglione, B., Le lettere, ed. Rocca, G. La, 1 ( Tutte le Opere, i; Verona, 1978), no. 452, p. 609Google Scholar.

88 He did admire the elaborate choreography of a moresca during Carnival 1521 (ibid., no. 506, p. 716; the passage is also given in Cruciani, , Teatro nel Rinasdmento, pp. 491–2Google Scholar).

89 The ‘Sala de Innocentio’ was the room where Ariosto's I suppositi was performed in 1519. That performance was sponsored by Cardinal Innocenzo Cibo, Leo's nephew; the ‘Sala’ was part of his apartments in the Vatican. See Cruciani, , Teatro nel Rinasdmento, p. 450Google Scholar.

90 See, for example, Fra Angelico's cycle of paintings for San Marco in Florence, nowdispersed between Florence, Paris, Munich and Dublin.

91 On Arcangelo da Siena, see Pastor, , Storia dei Papi, iv, pt 1, p. 459Google Scholar. On Speroni (Bernardino Speroni degli Alvarotti), see Pieraccini, G., La Stirpe de' Medici di Cafaggiolo, 3 vols. (2nd edn, Florence, 1947), i, p. 226Google Scholar.

92 On theatrical productions during the pontificate of Leo X, see Cruciani, , Teatro, pp. 379–492Google Scholar.

93 The letter is quoted in Neiiendam, K., ‘Le théâtre de la Renaissance à Rome’, Analecta Romana Instiluti Danici, 5 (1969), pp. 103–97, on p. 194, n. 204Google Scholar.

94 Ibid., p. 173.

95 The performers would probably have been Francesco Cherea and his troupe, who were paid from the pope's private accounts in September, October and November 1520. Indeed, it was Cherea who took La mandragola to Venice in 1522. See ibid., p. 174.

96 Festa, C., Opera omnia, ed. Main, A. and Seay, A., Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 25 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1962–1978), vii, p. 1Google Scholar. Iain Fenlon and James Haar, following Einstein, consider it dubious; it was also printed in Ghibellini's, EliseoIl primo libra de canzoni villanesche, alla napolitana, a tre voci (Venice: Gardane, 1554)Google Scholar. See Fenlon, and Haar, , ‘Fonti e cronologia dei madrigali di Costanzo Festa’, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, 13 (1978), pp. 212–42, on p. 214, n. 6Google Scholar.

97 For the Naich setting, see Naich, Hubert, Opera omnia, ed. Harrán, D., Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 94 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1983), pp. 76–9Google Scholar; the first edition was published c. 1540.

98 Modern edition in Cammarota, L., Gian Domenico del Giovane da Nola, 2 vols. (Rome, 1973), i, p. 121Google Scholar. Harrán discusses the melodic resemblances to Naich's Madonna in his edition, The Anthologies of Black-Note Madrigals, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 73 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1978–1981), i, pt 2, pp. lxxi–lxxiiGoogle Scholar.

99 See, for example, the ‘Canzona delle vedove e dei medici’, the ‘Canzona de' medici’ and lsquo;Medici siam maestri in cerusia' (only the text survives) in Singleton, C.S., Canti carnascialeschi del Rinascimento (Bari, 1936), pp. 79–80, 167–8 and 424–6Google Scholar. A 1546 publication of Mascharate di Lodovico Novello di più sorte et varii soggetti apropriati al carnevale includes four-part settings of S'alcuna è d'amor ferita che vol esser risanata (‘Da medici’) and Siam chirurghi, o buona gente, sin da India qua venuti (‘Da ciroichi’).

100 For the texts of some of these, see McGee, T. J. with Mittler, S. E., ‘Information on Instruments in Florentine Carnival Songs’, Early Music, 10 (1982), pp. 452–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 Now available in a facsimile edition by F. A. D'Accone in the series Renaissance Music in Facsimile 3 (New York, 1987).

102 ‘A Newly Discovered Sixteenth-Century Motet Manuscript at the Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 3 (1950), pp. 173–232, on p. 197CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Lowinsky, Music in the Culture of the Renaissance and Other Essays, ed. B. J. Blackburn, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1989), ii, pp. 433–82, on p. 451.

103 Sherman, J., Raphael's Cartoons in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen and the Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel (London, 1972), pp. 72 and 50, n. 32Google Scholar.

104 See ‘The Medici Coat of Arms in a Motet for Leo X’, Early Music, 15 (1987), pp. 31–5Google Scholar. Charlet's Vidit Dominus, whose author Mitchell P. Brauner has convincingly identified as the papal singer Charles d'Argentil, likewise has a cantus firmus derived from the Medicicoat of arms; see ‘The Manuscript Verona, Accademia Filarmonica, B218 and its Political Motets’, Studi Musicali, 16 (1987), pp. 3–12Google Scholar.